Because I don't have enough blogs. But seriously, this blog will be for some other things I do that are not necessarily related to individual movies.

Sunday, October 2, 2016

Whew! Rough Couple Weeks! PART 1

Just got back from the Monstermania Weekend promoting Terrortory's release. That's me and the Greatest American Hero, William Katt.

But let's REWIND...

It's September 23rd. I've submitted to be published the actual Terrortory movie...I've set it so that it won't be live until October 1st, but I want it to be published so it will show up in Amazon's database for people to add to their watchlist.

Amazon REJECTS the title late on the 24th. They say "Misleading Synopsis". They don't give any other help, which is just another exhibit for how mediocre-to-bad their Video Direct Support is.

So I send them this email:

I just got an error on Terrortory that reads as this:

"Synopsis - Misleading Content:
We are unable to publish your title as the synopsis provided contains content which
is misleading and/or an inaccurate representation of the video content. Please
update the synopsis and resubmit your title. For more information, see our Content
Policy Guidelines. "
Nothing in my synopsis is misleading. This is the synopsis:
EXCLUSIVELY PREMIERING on AMAZON PRIME until October 31st! In the vein of Creepshow
and Tales From The Crypt comes this anthology horror featuring six tales set in the
nightmare land called the TERRORTORY!
The movie is exclusively premiering on Amazon Prime until October 31st, at which
point we will make it a pay-only title. The movie is in the vein of Creepshow and
Tales From The Crypt, and it has 6 stories in it.
So what's the misleading part of this?

But I don't have time to wait for their reply. I have to get this approved. So I modify the synopsis slightly and resubmit. Another day and another rejection. I'm starting to sweat, because if this isn't approved by the 28th, it may not show up in time to be live on October 1st...

The new rejection clarifies that my synopsis implies that Amazon endorses my movie. I disagree--it simply states the fact that it's exclusively available on Amazon. It's true. We're not playing it anywhere else. The fact that Amazon's being anal about it is just stupid.

Whatever. I delete that sentence and resubmit.

It gets approved after a couple of days, but it doesn't go live until midnight strikes the first minute of October 1st.

But before that we have the premiere. REWIND AGAIN

The weather was terrible. Pouring rain, which led to massive traffic. I knew this would mean no cool pictures of the crowds of people under the marquee--they'd all be huddled inside to avoide the crappy weather.

I needed to get to the theater early so I could test the blu ray and make sure it was cool. We had the limo show up, and headed out.

I started getting a lot of texts and emails from people who were gonna come, but said the weather was too shitty or the traffic was bad, etc. I don't blame them--it was disappointing, but I can't say I wouldn't have done the same thing in their place.

I get to the theater and nobody's arrived yet. I rush in and get the blu ray to the projectionist guy. He puts it in and the disc is fast forwarding with some weird shit. I just assume he's doing that. But he opens the window and he's like "Is that how it's supposed to look?"

I'm like, "No." He messes with it and gets it working. Sounds good too--the Dolby mix plays nicely.

Fast foward--we get a decent crowd. Not as many as would have come if the weather had been nice, but definitely a healthy bunch--I'm guessing around 250. They laugh in most of the places I'd hoped. There was a couple of places where I thought there'd be a laugh but there wasn't one.

Most people seemed pretty happy with the movie. We got differing opinions on which ones were best, but the leaders seemed to be Siren and DC, with Smiling Jack coming next.

Funny aside--my kid was only supposed to watch the part he's in, but he bullied his mother into letting him watch all of it, much to my parents disapproval. They were all up in the private balcony overlooking the theater.

Afterparty was fun, had some drinks, shot the shit with people I don't see that often.

But in the back of my mind I was heading to the next challenge--the very next morning I was heading to Monstermania to spread the news of Terrortory on Amazon...